Crisp
France
EU
Crisp is a customer messaging platform designed to help businesses communicate with their customers in real-time. It offers a suite of tools for live chat, email, and social media integration, making it...
European Helpdesk Software
GLPI
France
EU
Open Source
Self-Hostable
GLPI is an open source IT asset management, helpdesk and service desk system. It is written in PHP and licensed under the GPL v3. The project started in 2003 under the association...
LiveAgent
Slovak Republic
EU
LiveAgent is a help desk and live chat software from Quality Unit, s.r.o., a company based in Bratislava, Slovakia. Quality Unit was founded in 2004 by the brothers Viktor and Andrej Zeman,...
OTOBO
Germany
EU
Open Source
Self-Hostable
OTOBO is an open source service management platform from Rother OSS GmbH, based in Leiblfing, Germany. It started in 2020 as a fork of the OTRS Community Edition after OTRS AG announced...
TOPdesk
Netherlands
EU
TOPdesk is a Dutch service management software company from Delft. Frank Droogsma and Wolter Smit started developing it in 1993 in an attic in Delft while working at an IT services firm,...
Trengo
Netherlands
EU
Trengo is a customer engagement platform from Utrecht in the Netherlands, founded in 2017. According to its About page it has more than 1,500 customers and over 100 employees, and it raised...
Zammad
Germany
EU
Open Source
Self-Hostable
Zammad is an open source helpdesk and ticketing system developed by Zammad GmbH in Berlin. The company was founded in 2014 by Martin Edenhofer, who had previously worked on the OTRS ticket...
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Submit SuggestionEuropean helpdesk software handles customer and employee requests as tickets: email, chat and other channels land in one system, and teams assign, answer and track them. This page lists Zammad, OTOBO, LiveAgent and Trengo for customer support, GLPI and TOPdesk for IT service management, and Crisp, which combines a shared inbox and a knowledge base.
European helpdesk software at a glance
| Product | Country | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Zammad | Germany | Open source ticket system with many channels |
| OTOBO | Germany | Open source service management, fork of OTRS |
| GLPI | France | Open source IT asset management and helpdesk |
| TOPdesk | Netherlands | IT and enterprise service management for larger organisations |
| LiveAgent | Slovakia | Help desk with live chat and knowledge base |
| Trengo | Netherlands | Shared inbox for WhatsApp, email and social media with AI agents |
| Crisp | France | Customer messaging with shared inbox, helpdesk and knowledge base |
Choosing helpdesk software in Europe
Two kinds of tools sit side by side. Customer support products such as LiveAgent, Trengo and Crisp are hosted services that bring chat, email and messaging channels together. Zammad covers the same ground as open source software that can run on an own server. For internal IT requests and asset tracking, GLPI and OTOBO are open source options, while TOPdesk is a commercial platform that is aimed at medium-sized and large organisations. Teams with in-house IT and strict data protection requirements can take the self-hosted route, while small teams without IT staff usually need a hosted service.
Ownership notes
All listed vendors have their headquarters in Europe and none is reported to have a non-European majority owner. Zammad and OTOBO both trace back to the older OTRS ticket system, and OTRS itself is now majority-held by the IT service management company EasyVista.
What Europe does not offer
None of the European products matches the size of the app marketplace of Zendesk. People who come from Intercom will find chat-focused tools in the customer service chatbots category as well.